With no Chris P in the house, hopefully we will get some great fans posting about the games. Today I didn't want to get into the game reviews because we are still working out the kinks. I really just wanted to give a quick overview of what I have seen through two exhibition wins.
It looks like Bennett will be playing the 2 mostly and responded with 28 and 25 pt games. He looks close to unstoppable when he is hitting three's at the rate he is. I love him coming off the high screens and being able to create or make his own shot. He looks fired up and like he really cares.
Crook is playing smart. He was able to work the paint today and it showed off with dunks and layups plus some excellent rebounding work. he got blocked by Pierre pretty bad (his 5th of 6) but otherwise I liked most of the defense and spirit he showed today. Be interesting to see if he starts but it looks like he will for now. The free throw shooting has not improved to say the least and it really needs to if he wants those minutes.
Strick has not played much. We know what we should get and he is still a huge fan favorite and assistant coach.
New Additions
Devon Norris- Played 2 mins today and scored his first bucket. Probably won't see much time.
Garry Gallimore- Added some great intensity on defense and can get the hoop as a 3. He started a fight with Jeanty and Pierre which fired up the crowd and got the team going. He could be a great player coming off the bench in a league where defense is not valued as highly.
Adris DeLeon- Coming in at point he has looked very good. He has control of the team when he is bringing the ball up. He was able to penetrate and get to the line and played tenacious defence. As a combo with Bennett I think this will give us a phenomenal 1-2 punch and good leadership.
Gary Ervin- Has looked excellent in two games coming in for Deleon. Another PG with great range and ability to get into the lane. He works very hard defensively and gives another great scoring option.
Gordon Malone- I haven't seen enough of Malone yet but I have a feeling he will be a very solid player starting centre or backup to McCarroll. Both a stepup from having Strick or Crook playing the 5 last year. More to come on Malone.
Jevohn Sheppard- Saw relatively limited action as the 2/3 guard and worked well on the permieter draining a couple threes and also getting in the lane. Would love to see his stats from the weekend.
Shagari Alleyne- Not sure about the big guy. His career stats are not great but in the first game he changed a bunch of shots from the perimeter. He has limited hands but seems nice. If he can stay central and block some shots and get a little more physical, he could give some minutes off the bench.
Mark McCarroll- Has some range for a big man and some very solid moves inside. He had a few boards and worked the glass well against Pierre today, giving at least a push with the big man. He looked to have a couple blocks as well and runs the floor decently.
Lonnel Shuler Jones- Saw some good minutes today and moved the ball well and got aggressively to the hoop. Liked what I saw today and will be interesting to see how he works into the rotation.
Desmond Ferguson- Moneyball has looked very assured and surprisingly quiet. He had a good scoring day in game one but didn't play as much in game two. He will be the starting 3 unless something weird happens.
The Team
Andre and Coach Berry have built an extremely strong and diverse team. It seems to be built around tenacious defense and fast breaking, but when they slow down, they can strike the three or get to the rack. There are options inside with Strick, McCarroll and Crook, while all of the guards can hit from distance. At least we know if one thing is not working, Coach Berry won't be afraid to change the team and the style of play. There is already some good attitude with The Fist Gallimore and Moneyball. They will definitely work hard for each other and effort should not be the reason that this team loses any games this year.
Coach Berry threw in some full court presses and some doubleteaming defence which has obviously been a priority in training. There are more than enough players to put points on the board and it will be interesting to see how the minutes get divided up. We may see a lot less of Strick this year and Norris will be on the bench. There are a lot of players that will need to play and if Berry can keep them team oriented, this will be an incredible year.
Other Teams
Manchester- Will be strong competition this year and I can't help but think they would have won had their coach and not their owner been on the bench. They should have put us away and have amazing three point shooters. I think we can hurt them downlow, but it will be tough for our threes to chase their guards on the perimeter.
QC- Jeanty and Pierre are good professionals. There is not a lot else on the squad that is really worrying. Glad I didn't have to buy Pierre that drink tonight..
Showing posts with label strickland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strickland. Show all posts
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Rainmen Highlights
Here is a quick view on the season as a first year ticket holder brought in by BDP:I enjoyed every game, even the one where we got blown out by the Kebs because of our ongoing conversations with the bench. That pretty much makes the season. Sweats and Bling were on fire. The vermont game where we sucked in free throws thanks to Striquille and the rest of the team, while long, was another highlight. Beating manchester! Trash talking "Moneyball" Ferguson, you know he is remembering that against us next game. Sorry Rainmen. The double Bailey/ Crook dunk.. Pre-game at the Elephant and castle, postgame at Boston Pizza and some great new friends and fans. An excitable message board- Hilarious at times.
Having conversations with Simplice, Bryant, white chocolate and others makes for great talking points and stories. Being able to get "into your head" with white Chocolate makes me laugh. He was terrible because the crowd remembered his reactions to the last game when he cleaned us. Halifax doesn't like a bad winner.
Growing crowds and some good atmosphere.
A picture of me heckling in the paper in front of Darrell Dexter. Section 23 highlight!
Knowing Strick would make at best 1 out of 2. At Best and telling the QC bench the same thing.
The crazy trade/ free agent signings in the last 6 weeks - I guess there is no deadline.
Watching a player like Bennett in full flight, Sanders working the boards, Crook throwing down, Bailey battling, Ramey's killer passes and strong D, Silverhorn lighting a few threes, Dandridge shooting from half, SirVal getting drunk and going off against the team, Jimmy's dependability, heckling Freiburg, drinking with Freiburg and Dick and Linda from vermont, Strick with the goggles, the hand, the prayers, the talk - awesome, I hope he stays one last year, Millien, Brown, Anderson coming in for the last burst and spending time with my wife and friends at the games.
Section 23- AWESOMEChad Lucas- AWESOME- we won't heckle if you bring your four year old to our section.. I kid, I kid.. Metro News- Cheeky- well done and good reporting by Wuest.
Lastly, although the franchise has had some issues and bad PR, overall this is par for the course at this level of ball. I think overall the franchise is in good shape and if we can keep some of our players to next year, we should have a solid squad. A little less revolving door next year and some early wins shoudl stand us in good stead.
Having conversations with Simplice, Bryant, white chocolate and others makes for great talking points and stories. Being able to get "into your head" with white Chocolate makes me laugh. He was terrible because the crowd remembered his reactions to the last game when he cleaned us. Halifax doesn't like a bad winner.
Growing crowds and some good atmosphere.
A picture of me heckling in the paper in front of Darrell Dexter. Section 23 highlight!
Knowing Strick would make at best 1 out of 2. At Best and telling the QC bench the same thing.
The crazy trade/ free agent signings in the last 6 weeks - I guess there is no deadline.
Watching a player like Bennett in full flight, Sanders working the boards, Crook throwing down, Bailey battling, Ramey's killer passes and strong D, Silverhorn lighting a few threes, Dandridge shooting from half, SirVal getting drunk and going off against the team, Jimmy's dependability, heckling Freiburg, drinking with Freiburg and Dick and Linda from vermont, Strick with the goggles, the hand, the prayers, the talk - awesome, I hope he stays one last year, Millien, Brown, Anderson coming in for the last burst and spending time with my wife and friends at the games.
Section 23- AWESOMEChad Lucas- AWESOME- we won't heckle if you bring your four year old to our section.. I kid, I kid.. Metro News- Cheeky- well done and good reporting by Wuest.
Lastly, although the franchise has had some issues and bad PR, overall this is par for the course at this level of ball. I think overall the franchise is in good shape and if we can keep some of our players to next year, we should have a solid squad. A little less revolving door next year and some early wins shoudl stand us in good stead.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Rainmen blow chance to make playoffs
It is going to be a hard road forward from here. Playing with a starting lineup including Millien, we started slow. The ball movement has been much better of late but it seems like there are some basic things still missing from Rainmen play.
1) Crashing the boards. The team still looks surprised at some of the shot selection and is not crashing bodies in there. Sanders is missed. Also, we seem to lose our fair share of tipped balls on rebounds that the other team wants more than we do. As a fan, that is so frustrating. Guys have already started running up the floor instead of staying to ensure possession. Silverhorn looked extremely guilty of that. Crook and Millien and Bailey worked hard in there, but couldn't turn what they did get into boards.
2) Why do we continue to leave the PG alone to inbounds and it seems a surprise when people have to rush back to get the ball and get it up the floor? That blows my mind. I figure the 1,2,3 are first on the list to bring up the ball.
3) Foulshooting except to millien, everyone missed key shots that should have won the game. Nuff said on this blog about that.
4) Dandridge doesn't even look interested. He gave away two key passes on fast breaks and passed up his usual threes. Do him a favour and cut him now.
5) What has Hammack done? Pasted to the bench, no minutes. I understand we want more time for the other players, but Hammack creates off the dribble and doesn't take bad shots.
6) Players overplaying on defense. Ramey got burned three or four times playing right up on their point guard leading to points inside. Crook does the same thing inside.
7) Jimmy shooting the last three with 3 secs left. We could have gone inside to Millien, Silverhorn on the cut or even bennett in the lane. I was surprised by that.
8) The Voice heaving up some shots.. yikes..
Positives: Workrate is much better with this team, unfortunately we are still making mental mistakes.
FS can only get better.. lol
Millien has looked good.
Ball movement has been better and some good interior passing leading to higher percentage shots. We just need to focus on hitting the layup/ dunk when we are inside.
I like our four big set with ramey on ball, Crook, Millien, Bailey, Strick. We seemed to get some good movement inside and lots of fouls shots obviously. That leads me to think the game planning was very good, but the execution poor.
It's going to be very tough to make playoffs with this little run as we need to win out and have a little help from everyone else to knock Vermont and Wilmington down. We have a couple tough games coming up as well with Kebs.
Notes; CP was on the IR so we tried to carry the heckling load. That was tough
Collier was on fire as was Sanders. He is only like 21 by the way.
My boy, Bryant, missed a massive dunk, but so did we.
Saw the lads at Boston Pizza after the game. vermont guys we decent fellas as we partied with the Super Fans Dick and Linda. Bryant and Sanders had a bad case of flu, they were hurting units so Sanders game was even more impressive.
Good luck on the road Rainmen, it seems like it is coming together but maybe too late.
1) Crashing the boards. The team still looks surprised at some of the shot selection and is not crashing bodies in there. Sanders is missed. Also, we seem to lose our fair share of tipped balls on rebounds that the other team wants more than we do. As a fan, that is so frustrating. Guys have already started running up the floor instead of staying to ensure possession. Silverhorn looked extremely guilty of that. Crook and Millien and Bailey worked hard in there, but couldn't turn what they did get into boards.
2) Why do we continue to leave the PG alone to inbounds and it seems a surprise when people have to rush back to get the ball and get it up the floor? That blows my mind. I figure the 1,2,3 are first on the list to bring up the ball.
3) Foulshooting except to millien, everyone missed key shots that should have won the game. Nuff said on this blog about that.
4) Dandridge doesn't even look interested. He gave away two key passes on fast breaks and passed up his usual threes. Do him a favour and cut him now.
5) What has Hammack done? Pasted to the bench, no minutes. I understand we want more time for the other players, but Hammack creates off the dribble and doesn't take bad shots.
6) Players overplaying on defense. Ramey got burned three or four times playing right up on their point guard leading to points inside. Crook does the same thing inside.
7) Jimmy shooting the last three with 3 secs left. We could have gone inside to Millien, Silverhorn on the cut or even bennett in the lane. I was surprised by that.
8) The Voice heaving up some shots.. yikes..
Positives: Workrate is much better with this team, unfortunately we are still making mental mistakes.
FS can only get better.. lol
Millien has looked good.
Ball movement has been better and some good interior passing leading to higher percentage shots. We just need to focus on hitting the layup/ dunk when we are inside.
I like our four big set with ramey on ball, Crook, Millien, Bailey, Strick. We seemed to get some good movement inside and lots of fouls shots obviously. That leads me to think the game planning was very good, but the execution poor.
It's going to be very tough to make playoffs with this little run as we need to win out and have a little help from everyone else to knock Vermont and Wilmington down. We have a couple tough games coming up as well with Kebs.
Notes; CP was on the IR so we tried to carry the heckling load. That was tough
Collier was on fire as was Sanders. He is only like 21 by the way.
My boy, Bryant, missed a massive dunk, but so did we.
Saw the lads at Boston Pizza after the game. vermont guys we decent fellas as we partied with the Super Fans Dick and Linda. Bryant and Sanders had a bad case of flu, they were hurting units so Sanders game was even more impressive.
Good luck on the road Rainmen, it seems like it is coming together but maybe too late.
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